Boy, there's a statement to take to heart this season. Those who are freaking out over politics, one could pick them up by the neck and they'd shake themselves to death. That's hardly helpful in crafting intelligent opposition.

A certain portion of the metacosm on the Left side of the aisle is going all vacuum-chamber on us, as the warbloggers did in the early '00s. Very sad to see history repeating itself. Very sad. Blogging was supposed to make things better. It hasn't - we're just awash in a sea of amateur opinion, with no method of judgment about those opinions. We who broke with print tradition, had traditions ... that continue to be leveraged in nefarious ways.

The only thing I know how to do, to counter all this, is be consistent and clear and do my best to vet sources. Triangulate when possible. And toss more than I post, while picking battles carefully.

The aftermath of this election, so many smart bloggers going simply nuts, is discouraging me. I'm within a penny's thickness of shutting this all down and delving into writing a book about my experiences in blogging, the idealistic 'golden' era.

With a nice juicy finishing chapter that rips the guts out of what is currently called 'blogging.'